Mass problems with accessing Facebook in Uzbekistan for the first time began on September 4-12 last year. The second time the social network became unavailable in Uzbekistan on September 17 and remained as such until today. It was possible to use the popular social network only via VPN.

YouTube became unavailable a month later, from October 4, 2018. For some time the service was accessible only through official mobile applications.

Authorities were silent for almost three months regarding the problems with Facebook and YouTube. Only at the end of November last year, Alisher Zufarov, head of the sales and service development department of UzbekTelecom, said the company is working to solve the problem.

He explained difficulties in accessing Facebook and YouTube with the first ever change of cryptographic key that serves as protection for the Domain Name System (DNS), which was reported by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

'We are closely involved in solving this problem and will immediately notify everyone as soon as we get results. No one doubts that this problem can be solved with time. In special cases, technologies dictate their own rules. We count on your understanding, Zufarov stressed.

In his turn, Olimjon Umarov, first deputy minister for the development of information technologies and communications, said the ministry is working to resolve this issue together with the national operator and other agencies.

It should be noted that ministries, administrations and other government agencies, as well as members of the government and heads of state agencies over the past months continued to actively publish news and statements on Facebook and upload videos on YouTube.